Do you ever wonder where God is when you watch the news?

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I can't avoid the news; good or bad, it's part of my job. But how can I shake off the images? And stop wondering about, you know...where God is...and all that stuff??
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Ive wondered that so many times. The term "God" is very broad. "God" is always where "God" is. To me, God is not a person or a religion or a thing. God is a place. A place in our heart. A feeling. God is love. Where did God come from and what does God do?

God comes from within. God is there for us to lean on, find strength, guide us. God is not responsible for the things people do. God doesnt make disease and God didnt create the universe. God cant fix it. Only we can. But God will guide us and God will lead us, if we will open ourselves to it.

Anxiety sells. You know that, keep that in mind when questioning the Universe.

Yeah, I could be wrong about the universe. God could have made it come to think of it. Like if God was the spark that blew it all up. Still questioning that some but thats why I love discussion To hear what others think

I really like what you've said, how you've described 'God'.
I'm not a believer, I'm not religious, I don't honestly know what's out there, if anything. But I believe in what you've said here, and I find what you've said rather comforting because its not blind. This has truth behind it. It's very realistic. Many question where is God, but God is such an individual thing. Personally, I think you hit the nail on the head with this

There is good and bad in the world. People make the choice to be good or bad, to have morals and ethics.

Years ago people went to church, had faith, and tried to live by the 10 commandments. Neighbors watched out for each other and their kids. Police were respected as well as authority in general. We obeyed our parents because there were consequences if we didn't. Consequences for disobeying teachers, police, and people in authority. We believed in God and didn't question Him. We also obeyed God for fear of the unknown if we didn't.

It was a way of life much simpler and happier.

Today people have gone the other way. They question God's existence, even denying His presence. They don't pray in school or teach morals and ethics. People have no respect for authority or each other. When you loose all that, society falls apart.

God is still here, always has been. It's the people who have turned away from Him. The people who choose bad over good.

But if you look, you will see God in all the chaos. Look at the people who help each other in times of crisis. Look at the good when bad events take place. Look at the compassion and care people can still do.

Take the Boston bombings. Look at the way the community reached out to each other. Look at the people who jumped in to help perfect strangers. That's God at work. That's people making good decisions out of love and respect.

Good will always triumph over evil. You just have to look at all the story, not just what the news portrays.

It's something I have often wondered, how can God (Tao, insert term) be good if there is so much bad in the world?

And to me the answer lies in freedom. I believe that we (more or less) have free will, at least within the confines of our existence the choices, decision, reactions, interpretations we partake in 'create' reality.

I would rather live in a free (again more or less) universe that has pain and chaos than a universe that restricts my choices, no matter how 'good' for me the outcome is.

I don't believe in having faith personally, but my trust based on what I have experienced has lead me to believe that God's love is rather different than human love. Human love comes with expectations (I love you... so long as you don't cheat me, I love you... so long as your not a serial killer, etc.), whereas (and of course I cannot speak for the Universe or any Deity definitively, this is just my interpretation) God love's in non-attached way. The sun shines and the rain falls just as much for rapists as it does for me, not because God is cruel, but because God loves in a way that transcends human problems.

I personally believe our Essences (High Selves, insert term) incarnate to experience. Some lives the personalities will be murdered, some lives we will probably turn it around and murder others. I think the problem is that there is no good or bad in the universe, there is positive and negative, things that are constructive, things that we perceive as pleasant or unpleasant, but there is no judge. We are here to do whatever we want, we are under no obligation. And that to me is the most profoundly loving thing, there is nobody accept our individual Essences keeping score, there is no set path.

I'm not sure if I am describing it very well, but my point is that our freedom entails responsibility. Everything up until our first breathe is decided for us and everything (that does not produce karma) that comes after that first breathe is up to us. It also offers beauty.

And for the record, I am not belittling the suffering of others. Yes some things hurt, yes we can work together to help alleviate the instances of social problems. But, I think from the perspective of my Higher Self the instances of pain are worth incarnating in the end.

I don't watch the news and I wonder how someone does without God. He is my hope...the world is an evil place with needy people whom I can hardly help.... I believe that evil is responsible for the bad news...too many people blame God for all of it (or allowing it)... when it's people who cause it.

I think you would have to learn how to "not take your work home" like therapist learn. And I would fill much of my "free" time with the good news, since all you get on media outlets is the bad stuff that is hyped much of the time. Listening to calming music, laughing children or even comedies...that might help take your mind off what is going on "out there".

The funnest thing you can do is watch a monkey show or tape or cd, you'll be rolling on the floor laughing. you may even see yourself in the actions of the monkeys.

I don't wonder where God is during the news. Instead, I wonder if these people are aware that God is watching them. I wonder how they would be able to justify their behavior straight to his face if he were to suddenly appear. As composed and "all-knowing" as she is on screen, I would LOVE to watch Jodi Arias explain herself to God right there on the spot. I'm guessing she wouldn't be able to defend herself with scripture, laws of attraction, or even her mother's wooden spoon.

The same goes for other "TV shows" - reality or fantasy. I wonder if they would be able to explain to God the need for such programming and why it should be considered typical human behavior.

Sometimes it makes me laugh, sometimes it makes me cry, sometimes I just shake my head and change the station.

As someone else said. Its not god who does it. Its the ppl who do.
I dont know you shake it off. I dont even know if we are suppose too.
Other wise how would we learn to help.
Look at all the ppl in boston who helped out that day. Thats where god was.
In the heart of good ppl who help;

Lol, I am the monkey for sure...

(thanks, everybody!)

People talk about the "good old days" when public schools pushed religion (and only their form of it) and everybody was so well-behaved. Perverts didn't exist. Didn't rape children. That sort of thing wasn't talked about. Society was more...secretive.

Whatever you believe about God, life wasn't like it was depicted on TV in the 1950's and other decades. And these days, we have more access to more people's lives than ever before. It's overwhelming. But it doesn't mean there's more negativity (and I'm not saying there's not), because it could just be that you hear about so much more of it now.

I wonder about God, too. But I also have one theory: God doesn't interfere with what S/He set in motion. We have free will from God, the choice to do what we want...however, others may use their free will to take away your free will. Or you might be born with a disease or condition. A random act of fate. It isn't that God doesn't care; it's that this life is the test to see if you can be who God wants you to be. Your actions and thoughts here will be what gets you into Heaven or Hell. Or maybe there's no Hell...maybe we have to live multiple lives to learn lessons that earn us a place with God. I don't know. It's a theory.

Or, maybe none of it is true. Maybe God exists, maybe S/He doesn't. Maybe it's like I described above, or maybe God sprinkles miracles all around and picks certain people to help and not other ones. I don't get why children who are being molested and pray to be saved from it aren't always saved. I don't get why a mother whose daughter was shot said that God saved her infant son because he wasn't shot. So, why didn't God save the daughter, too?

I think people make pieces "fit" into the puzzle. If something sounds like a possible explanation of why God does this or doesn't do that, people think, Yes! That must be it! So, they put it in their little bag of puzzle pieces, but that piece may not be correct. Just because something makes sense to you, doesn't mean it's correct. It also doesn't mean it isn't correct.

Anything is possible, and nobody knows. They might believe, but they don't know.

I don't watch TV (I don't even own a TV) so I don't have to sit and watch the reporting of what is surely practically 100% "bad" news. But I do use the internet, so I do GET news and we have HLN streaming on TV's here at work, so I do see and hear news that way too.
Like others, I don't wonder where God is per se, but where these news makers are in their relationship WITH God. We all do bad things from time to time...but not to the level of these folks.
I wonder what makes a Jodi Arias WANT to do what she did.
Why did that nut kidnap 3 young girls/women and hold them hostage and do such unspeakable things to them?
Why do parents who are in dire straits kill their own kids and/or themselves....why not just take your own life and leave the rest of them alone?
Why take your own life, just face it........but I digress.

I believe that I know where God is....worried if I say much more about that it will be construed as religious talk so I will just say that I believe I know where He is.

Hi girl. Indeed I do wonder that. I used to have a fair amount of faith. I had thorough religious training as a child. The main message we got was that: God is Love. My faith has weakened terribly and it is a very lonely feeling that we might be in this universe with no heavenly father looking down and caring about us. I can't tell you the pain this causes me.

I used to respond to bad things in the news by blaming it on people. I thought it was just the price for having free will. Now that explanation doesn't satisfy my doubts.

I'm am demoralized by the amount of pain that is in the world. The news highlights one kind of pain. The other thing that gets to me is nature shows where I see, for instance, the lion chasing down the baby gazelle. The mother gazelle looks on helplessly and obviously distressed. The lion isn't doing anything wrong. It's doing what it was created to do. Why the world was created to harbor such pain makes me feel that life is basically tragic.

I am deeply troubled by the despair this causes in me.

> The other thing that gets to me is nature shows where I see, for instance, the lion chasing down the baby gazelle. The mother gazelle looks on helplessly and obviously distressed. The lion isn't doing anything wrong. It's doing what it was created to do. Why the world was created to harbor such pain makes me feel that life is basically tragic.

Rose

That is really a hard one to explain. Im not sure I can. My thoughts about it are just like yours. Why should something have to die so that others might live? I can see no justice in it. It is a tragedy. I think its why some people choose vegetarian lifestyles and, when I think about it, it is a lot healthier way to be. It not only saves the animals, it reduces our carbon imprint significantly. If only I didnt love meat so much. Ive almost converted a few times and maybe I will yet. Also, not always, but often, natures predators prey on the weak, the old, and the sick. Its small, but its some consolation to think that those animals would have died sooner or later anyway. Falling prey may have even been more humane than dying a slow and protracted death from starvation or illness.

I believe it is also why many spiritualities/religion have a practice of blessing food.

Rose and allimsaying, those last paragraphs about how nature can be so cruel, those are the types of things that upset me constantly. If a loving being created that, why? I can't really accept that it's supposed to teach us some kind of lesson, or to be compassionate. I just can't understand why a loving god would make His/Her animals and life forms to have to survive this way. Thanks for bringing that up, guys.

Its those kinds of questions that have led me to believe that God didnt create the physical universe. Gods universe is made of the love that living beings feel.

It is the cycle of life. It does work if you take emotion out of it. I know it hurts you so I'm not trying to discredit your feelings.

One animal eats another to keep the balance. Otherwise the animals would over populate and starve. Starving is a worse fate than being eaten by another animal.

liveforfish, yes, I understand that it works. Nature is amazing. But I still don't see why God, who can do anything, made a world where cruelty, pain and death is part of nature.

I understand what you're saying Liveforfish and I dont mean to discredit your belief but I dont want to take the emotion out of it or anything in life.

When it all seems so angry and hurtful, gruesome and inhumane; I find it helps to read history----it helps me to put things in perspective, we are not more cruel than our ancestors...but we know much more about what is going on everywhere all at once (or we think we do from sound bites) and, for many of us, it is a "out there" thing that, like anxiety vs fear based on immediate reality, makes us needing to find the "right" labels, boxes, places to put things.
Containment, psychologically, is necessary at times.

Brutality is hardly new, and, if I read history right, we actually have come some distance for the better.
Years ago, I read the bible and wondered about that "God"---where was he much of the time? Life is a struggle for all beings, I believe the earth would live on without people, that we could become extinct like the dinosaurs etc---

So, a people-centered Being just never quite touched me.
The universe, physics, can't explain (well not in a quick post) that I "get" at some level. Me, the tree, the person down the street, the granite erratics in nearby woods, we are all made of the same stuff, all stardust--the genetic nearness of life amazes me---takes so little to make huge differences.
There are things I will never know...and that is okay.
I have experiences I do not understand. And that is okay.
For me, being out of doors, camping primitively, and tossing the watch brings great calm. Peace.
Yet, I love to walk Central Park, the city, to watch people all day and peruse architecture etc-------------this is a human energy with all its feathers and defects. It has its own comfort. I ramble.
Most "stories" never make the news, and sometimes the news "makes" a story. ( I have a great respect for journalists who work to bring real news to the world, it can be a dangerous, and it is a necessary job)
I don't have television, get news from the radio mostly, sometimes on line.
Oh, this is not quite what I wanted to say but it's early and I am distracted...
hugs all around

With all due respect, Gods' word is Love. One word. Love. One action. Love. Hugs all around.

I appreciate seeing that others here ponder this troubling issue. Maven, like you I don't find any explanation that sets my soul at ease. Somehow I think that pain seems to be necessary for there to be beauty. So I guess God, if there is one, chose to do what was necessary for there to be beauty. I suspect that, in order for there to be no pain, the universe would have to be made of nothing other than rock and gas. But, in the face of really hard pain, I always hear the theme of this thread, "Where is God?" As a child, I was taught that God cannot feel pain . . . that God is perfectly happy, always. Somehow I have to imagine God having some perception of tragedy. Otherwise God would seem shallow to me.